Giant fish trained to respond to lunchtime call

London, Feb 3 : Plymouth University experts have trained a giant six-year-old Humphead Wrasse to respond to the sound at meal times.

Dr Phil Gee of Plymouth University says that the main idea was to train 3ft long and still half grown Bentley to enter a special holding pool at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth at meal times.

With this training, aquarium staff can now anytime summon the fish for medical examinations, he adds.

"We've been working with Bentley since the summer and he has turned out to be a very quick learner. The idea is to get him to respond to a sound, made by banging on the gate of a small enclosure just off his main swimming tank," Times Online quoted Dr Phil Gee as saying.

"Bentley has learned and remembers that he will be rewarded with food when he swims into the holding pool. The longer he stays, the more he gets. We're learning more about fish every day and they are not the cold slimy brainless creatures many people still believe them to be. One of the most common misconceptions is that fish have very short memories," he added.

Dr Gee says that even after a gap of four months, the fish remembered exactly what to do to be fed on hearing the sound.

"Work on Bentley's tank meant we had a four-month gap in his training yet when it was resumed last month he had remembered exactly what to do," he said.

"Fish are pretty sophisticated creatures, and big fish give the appearance of being quite clever," he added.